The Perfect Seduction Read online

  "No."

  ''Then I suggest that you've a better use for your time and attention than insulting your sister." The bow she quickly pulled into existence wasn't exactly centered, but it was fairly close and somewhat correctly shaped. It would have to do. Perhaps the dining room light would be fashionably dim.

  She was hastily smoothing the worn lace on the shoulders of Camille's dress when there came a knock on the door. A quick glance at the mantel clock suggested that Sawyer's timepiece ran ahead of hers. Being late for dinner their first night It certainly wasn't the way she’d have preferred to start things off.

  "Get the sewing basket and prepare the needle and thread for me," she instructed, trying to brush the worst of the wrinkles from her freshly unpacked skirt as she moved to· answer the summons. Over her shoulder she added, "You have two minutes to find your crinoline and get into it And Camille, do not fidget with that bow. Just sit there and don't move."

  She flung open the door with far more speed and force than she'd intended. The eyebrow that shot up on the other side wasn't Sawyer's, though, it was Carden Reeves's.

  Who, in the soft light of the hallway, looked positively dashing in his dark, well-tailored suit. And even more devilishly handsome than he had that afternoon.

  Even as she inwardly winced at the thought of her badly wrinkled skirt, he smiled and said, "Good evening, Seraphina."

  "Mr. Reeves."

  His smile instantly evaporated and he heaved a small sigh. ''For the moment, I'll set the matter of names aside. I've come here for two reasons, the second of which is to escort you and my nieces down to dinner."

  "Thank you. And the primary reason for your appearance at our door?"

  "I've come to beg. Grovel if I must." She arched a brow in silent question which succeeded in prompting him to add, "It's rather complicated."

  "I'll try to follow along as you explain," Sera countered, stepping into the hall and pulling the door closed quietly behind her.

  He nodded, clasped his hands behind his back, and looked at the wall beyond her shoulder. "Percival's widow, Honoria, is dining with us this evening."

  "How lovely," she observed, knowing there had to be more even as she fought the urge to reach up and adjust the folds of his silk stock. "It will be refreshing to have an adult conversation with another female. It's been ages. I promise to mind my manners." And my hands, she silently added.

  "It's not you I'm worried about."

  "Is Honoria bad-mannered?"

  His gaze slid over to meet hers. "Well ... "

  "I find it hard to believe that the widow of a peer makes her way roughshod through social occasions."

  ''That's not it at all. Honoria's a sweet darling," he quickly offered. "It's just that she doesn't have the slightest inkling of why anyone would want to maintain a secret."

  "Ah, the matter of Arthur and his demise," Seraphina rejoined, her blood heating with anger. "It was extremely difficult for the girls to accept their parents' death and to replant so much as a seed of hope in their hearts would be horribly cruel. I won't do it to them."

  "I've decided - "

  "And I won't allow you to do it, either," she interrupted.

  "You will have to accept your fate. Hopefully with some small degree of grace and dignity."

  He took her measure for several moments. "Do you have any idea of what's at stake?"

  "A seat in the House of Lords?"

  "And do you know what comes with that seat?" he shot back.

  Her patience had been worn in surviving, frayed in traveling halfway across the world, and tattered in dealing with the mounds of baggage that had been unceremoniously dropped at her feet. She had three girls to get ready for a dinner with their long-lost aunt and uncle,and Carden Reeves was whining about the burdens of being a peer?

  "We've had this conversation before," she replied, deciding that being fired might well be the best thing that could ever happen to her. Lord knew it would considerably reduce Carden Reeves's chances of being bludgeoned to death with the nearest heavy object. "As I recall, being elevated to the peerage provides one with a title, land, wealth, power, and a considerable improvement in social standing."

  "Hopefully," he countered, clearly just as willing to do battle, "you' ll also remember that I mentioned that all of that came with expectations that I would prefer to avoid."

  "I do. You did not, however, detail for me those ever so hideous standards."

  "Do you have a lifetime to listen?"

  She heard the cauldron of frustration bubbling beneath the surface of his taunt and something inside her suggested that perhaps she needed to listen more and think a bit less.

  She lifted her chin, took a steadying breath, and with all the gentleness she could muster, said, "I'm assuming that dinner won't be served until you choose to arrive in the dining room. If it's midnight, then it's midnight. You are, after all, the master of this house. Take what time you require for an explanation. I'm willing to listen with as open a mind as is humanly possible."

  Again be considered her. And for the first time since they'd met, she bad a sense of his appraisal taking in the whole of who she was, not just her physical attributes and the potential they offered for his enjoyment. It was something of a forward step, a most surprising one, and she was grateful for it.

  "Have you ever known any upper-class gentlemen, Seraphina?" he asked quietly.

  His voice was a caress and her resolve sighed and softened at its touch. "Not in a personal sense," she replied, smiling up at him. "From time to time, some would visit friends or relations in Jamaica. Everyone was generally aware of their presence."

  "What did those gentlemen do with their days while in Jamaica?"

  "They dined, rode horses, and strolled.'"

  "And what did they do with their nights?"

  "Publicly, they played cards. drank, dined, and smoked. I wouldn't venture to guess as to their private activities."

  A roguish smile tugged at the corner of his mouth but he brought it under control to nod and ask, "What do you suppose they do with their days and nights when they re not in Jamaica? When, say, they're in London?"

  "I have no idea. Tend to their businesses?" He shook his head slowly, his gaze holding hers. "They dine, ride horses, gamble, drink, stroll, and smoke. Because upper-class gentlemen-and especially peers of the realm - do not have businesses. Only the common classes engage in trade. Only the great disgustingly grubby masses need to do something with their days to produce money."

  "And the upper classes send their servants out to pluck it off the trees of their estates?" she countered skeptically.

  "I wish my father had found some of those. It would be very nice to own an orchard of them."

  "Yes. I suppose it would." He shrugged and a soul deep kind of sadness edged his voice when he added, "Perhaps."

  "I'm sorry that I don't know about these things," Sera offered sincerely. "Most of my father's friends were businessmen and saw nothing wrong with the making of money. Not that my father was all that conscientious about doing so, you understand. His focus was his research and nothing else mattered as much to him."

  His smile was thin. "And to the upper class nothing matters as much as the illusion that one has so much money that one need never think about making it or the consequences of spending it."

  "How is that possible?" she asked, both repelled and fascinated by the very notion of such a world. "Given the realities of living, I mean. How do they put food on the table and keep the roofs over their heads from leaking?

  Surely they have to have money."

  "Not necessarily."

  "They live on the goodness of others? On charity?"

  ''The only truly acceptable way for a peer to obtain money is through the collection of rent from his tenant farmers. And he would never take the cash in his own hand or rap his knuckles on a farmhouse door. He has a manager do that for him."

  "Several of my father's friends were landlords," Sera mused aloud, intrig
ued by the puzzle he'd presented her.

  ''There was no shame in it. In fact, owning the right properties was considered to be a sign of one's true genius. Why is living off rent monies something you would want to avoid?"

  "It's often a very meager income. Bad weather. Crop failures. And as industries rise, more and more of the young are abandoning farming to take up trade work in the cities for regular wages. Most peers lie awake at night counting tenant farmers, not sheep. On the other hand, I happen to make a very good living as an architect."

  "You would have to stop being an architect to become a peer?"

  "Of course not. I have talents. I'd be expected to contribute them to charitable causes."

  "But you couldn't accept money for it?"

  "I could, but I'd be roundly censured for it. In the minds of the upper class, it's far better to be idle, bored, and secretly poor than productive, happy, and genuinely wealthy."

  . "I see," Sera whispered, thinking that it was the most twisted logic she'd ever encountered. To live your life, day in and day out, desperately maintaining an illusion that made you utterly miserable ... What a sad waste of a person's time on earth. Why bother to rise every morning?

  "Wanting to be productive, happy, and wealthy is inexcusably shallow of me," he said softly. "I know that, but there it is. I'm a selfish man."

  No, it wasn't selfish. She could understand how he felt that way, wanted more to his life than illusions. Didn't she want the same basic things for herself? It wasn't fair to deny a person a chance for a pleasant life simply because they'd been born to a social class whose foolishness all but made it impossible. "And then there are the mamas."

  Sera blinked at him, struggling to come from the mental maze she'd been wandering. "I beg your pardon?"

  He stuffed his hands into his trouser pockets and nodded. ''The upper-class women who are determined to see their darling daughters married-no matter the obstacles to a peer."

  "Even to an impoverished peer?"

  "Wealth doesn't count as much as prestige."

  "Prestige doesn't fill one's dinner plate," Sera countered.

  ''True,'' he quickly agreed, "but the social whirl of a peer involves a good many dinner parties. She can stuff her reticule when no one's looking."

  "You're being facetious."

  "You'd be shocked," he replied, grinning. He sobered slowly and then quietly said, "I've always been a third son, Seraphina. No one's ever cared how I made my way in the world as long as I wasn't imprisoned for it or I didn't get too dirty in the process. No one has ever tripped me on a public walkway so they could introduce me to their desperate daughter."

  "But now you're an only son."

  "And suddenly how I make my living is an appropriate subject for public comment. Who I eventually marry ... "

  He shook his head and sighed. "Pigs at county fairs are sold with more dignity and less social commentary."

  It was one thing, she knew, to gracefully accept one's circumstances, but it was entirely another to resign oneself to wallowing in them for all eternity. Had she done that, she'd still be in Belize, waiting to starve to death. "And you can't be a peer who grasps his own fate and goes his own way?" she suggested, thinking that if ever there was a man capable of making his own rules, it was Carden Reeves.

  "Peers don't go their own way, Seraphina," he explained with what appeared to be a great deal of patience.

  ''They live, breathe, procreate, and die by very specific and rigid social expectations."

  "And the empire would immediately collapse if they deviated?"

  ''Their personal existences would," he assured her.

  ''They'd be vilified and ostracized. It would be an extremely difficult, lonely way to live. No woman in her right mind would willingly marry him."

  "Considering your commitment to bachelorhood," she quipped, "the latter would be a rather positive consequence of the whole thing, wouldn't it?"

  His grin was instant and broad, brightening his eyes and-for some strange, unknown reason-lightening her heart. "Peers are expected to produce legitimate heirs. To not do so is terribly unpatriotic. I'm obligated to give it my best for Queen and country."

  She laughed softly, liking the easy banter between them, enjoying his irreverent sense of humor and the way he made her pulse sing. This Carden Reeves was ever so much more comfortable to be with than the smoothly polished parlor predator.

  "Can you see why," he asked softly, "it's so important to me that everyone believes Arthur will return?"

  "Yes. I can," Sera admitted. With genuine regret she added, "Unfortunately, though, Arthur isn't going to return.

  The best you can hope for is to delay the inevitable.

  And I simply don't see the point in doing that."

  "I'm not sure that I do, either," he confided with a shrug. "But I know that I feel a desperate need to do so. All I'm asking for is time. Time to find something of a solution that allows me to live my life the way I want to live it."

  "From all that you've told me," she offered gently, "I think that you might as well cry for the moon."

  "But you will let me cry for as long as I can stand the self-pity?" he asked hopefully. His eyes sparkled again.

  "I'm fairly sure I'll come around eventually."

  Not that he would have any choice about it, she knew.

  But she had a choice and it was to be kind and understanding of another's fragile, dying dreams. "I won't ask the girls to craft a fantasy about their father," she declared gently, again resisting the urge to fiddle with his silken neckwear. "But I will make every effort to change the subject should his fate or whereabouts arise in the course of conversation. It's the best that I can do and live with my conscience."

  "It's a perfect compromise," he said, bowing briefly at the waist. "And I appreciate your willingness to make ii:. You certainly didn't have to."

  Seraphina disagreed, but didn't say so. No man wanted to know that he was pitied by a woman.

  "Are you ready to go down for dinner?"

  Dinner. Sera glanced down at her skirt and resigned herself to offering apologies if necessary. "I am," she replied.

  ''The girls, however, could well be another matter entirely," she added, turning away from him to knock quietly on the door as she turned the knob.

  "Ladies?" she called, poking her head through the door to be sure they were sufficiently clothed to be seen by a male. "Your Uncle Carden is here to escort us to dinner.

  Are you ready?"

  They were all three standing together beside the dressing table. Judging by the frozen poses, guilty expressions, and the too-quick nods, Sera guessed that she'd interrupted yet another of their regular sisterly contests.

  Whether this one had been of wills or temperaments, it seemed to have been suspended for the moment. Thankfully, they'd managed to make themselves fully presentable before they'd succumbed to their combative tendencies. Sera pushed the door fully open and motioned for her charges to join them in the hall.

  "Good God," Carden Reeves whispered from behind her as they sorted - with the usual jostling and elbowing themselves in their customary order.

  She glanced over her shoulder to see him appraising the girls' clothing from shoulder to hem. ''They're growing," she explained. "And there hasn't been any money for new clothing. We've made do by letting out or taking up seams and hems as necessity dictated. Keeping them in shoes that fit their feet has been the greatest of the challenges. Try as I might, I can't make shoes."

  "You actually tried?"

  His amusement was obvious. She thought she heard a bit of respect and perhaps even a smidgen of awe, too.

  Pleased, she smiled up at him as she stepped back to allow the girls to move through the doorway. "Of course. Had I been successful, it would have been an accomplishment I could have bragged about for the rest of my life. Can you make shoes?"

  "I have absolutely no idea," he laughingly admitted. It was the most inexplicable impulse that had ever struck her. One mome
nt she'd been standing there, mindful only of providing an explanation for the girls being pathetically dressed, and in the next she was thinking that it would be perfectly right and wonderful to step forward and kiss Carden Reeves. Good God, what had happened?

  And why was the impulse not fading?

  Her heart, instantly jolted, was racing, making it difficult to breathe and sending a wave of heat fanning across her cheeks. At the edge of her awareness she saw the girls pass between her and ... Their uncle knew what she was thinking, feeling. His eyes were bright with appreciation and his smile was ever so soft and inviting. Go ahead, Sera, it said wordlessly, kiss me. I'll kiss you back. You'll enjoy it.

  Yes, I would. And so would you.

  He slowly cocked a brow, stopping Sera's heart and painfully catching what little breath she had left in her lungs.

  "Miss Sera?"

  She tore her gaze from Carden Reeves's and weakly but gratefully smiled down at Beatrice. "Yes, dear?"

  "I pulled my stocking down so that the hole doesn't show."

  Her heart was beating again and she was able to draw a full, calming breath. "Very good thinking, Bea. I'll darn it after dinner."

  "You'll go to the dressmaker's first thing tomorrow morning. All of you."

  Imperious. So blessedly, typically Carden Reeves, lord of his manor and all that he surveyed. "As you wish, Mr. Reeves," Seraphina replied, utterly relieved to have been returned to the safety of ordinary ground.

  "Carden. And I'll accompany you there."

  "You're familiar with the particulars of selecting ladies' wardrobes?" she asked, willingly playing her part in the charade.

  His eyes sparkled devilishly. "Actually, I'm quite good at it."

  "I should have guessed."

  She took his offered arm without thinking, only in doing so realizing that touching him had become something not only comfortable to do, but enjoyable. Considering that she'd been in this house less than half a day ... Part of her was fascinated by the speed and ease with which she was allowing the distance between them to close. Another part of her was shamed by what that implied about the strength of her moral fiber.